THIS was back in 1979 when the Canadiens, having lost the opener of the Finals by a 4-1 score to the Rangers, were about to bench Ken Dryden in favor of Michel (Bunny) Larocque for Game 2. Understand: Dryden, who had started every playoff game for which he’d been in uniform since coming to Montreal late in 1970-71, was about to give way to a backup.

But not so fast. Because during the pre-game warm-up at the Forum, Doug Risebrough drove a rising shot from the left circle off Larocque’s mask, right between the eyes. The goaltender went down, briefly unconscious, and was helped to the room, unable to play, never to get his chance at glory. Restored to the rightful place, Dryden would backstop the Canadiens to four straight victories and a fourth straight Stanley Cup.

“I’ll never forget. Riser was just about to shoot when the puck came up on edge, and there was nothing he could do about it and there was no time for Bunny to react,” Brian Engblom, the ESPN color man who played defense for that Montreal team, said yesterday. “When Bunny got back to the room, he just tore it up, everything was all over the place when we came back in.

“We all felt terrible for him. It was going to be his chance.”

Yesterday morning, while a dozen or so fans were lined up in the parking lot outside the perimeter gate hoping some tickets would become available for last night’s potential Cup-clincher of a Game 6, the Devils were almost having their own Bunny Larocque moment. Their version, though, was just a teeny bit scarier.

Scarier because it wasn’t a backup going down, it was Martin Brodeur, whose presence in nets some people might even believe essential to securing a fourth New Jersey win over Colorado, and thus, a second consecutive Cup.

It was, of course, routine. These things always begin that way. Defensemen were taking cross-ice passes before shooting the puck from inside the blue line. No traffic in front, nothing much going on. And then Colin White shot one from the left that came up on Brodeur, who reacted somewhat awkwardly in attempting to get his blocker on the puck. The goaltender got a piece of the puck, but the puck also got a piece of him, presumably around the right forearm or wrist.

Brodeur yelped and dropped his stick, then his blocker, and was looking at and then shaking his hand. Nobody reacted. Nobody seemed in a terrible hurry to learn whether there would be terrible news. For a few moments, Brodeur was left alone with his pain. How unbelievably ironic: just a day earlier, in attempting to explain why it was so dangerous for his team to pre-suppose victory, the goaltender had said this:

“Who knows how the first period is going to go? Who knows how warm-ups are going to go? We still have a practice. You never know, we could lose players.”

Finally, Larry Robinson and goaltending coach Jacques Caron stopped by. Caron chatted a while with his prize pupil. Players working at the other end of the ice became aware that something was amiss, stopped what they were doing and looked back at the unfolding scene. A couple of players skated by. White didn’t get too close.

“I don’t really know what happened; I usually don’t shoot high,” the defenseman would say later in the locker room. “But Marty’s OK, so I’m off the hook.”

Brodeur did go back in nets after a couple of minutes, but all was not immediately well. It was obvious he was having some pain gripping his stick. A few shots later, Brodeur banged his stick down in frustration. He chatted a bit more with Caron.

Not long after that Robinson blew his whistle to end the skate and get everybody off the ice. Brodeur skated slowly toward the runway. Brodeur almost always can be found smiling. He was not smiling on his way to the runway or on his way to the locker room.

Few goaltenders speak to the media on the morning of a game. Brodeur always does during the regular season, and has been available at times during the playoffs, though not during the Finals. Like most of his teammates, he was not available yesterday morning. Unlike most of his teammates, he was receiving treatment behind locked doors for an injury sustained minutes earlier. Everyone insisted Brodeur was fine.

Robinson was asked all about Jason Arnott’s availability at his morning media session, not at all about Brodeur. On his way to the team bus, the coach stopped for a moment.

“Beezer, tonight?” he was asked.

“Yeah; right,” he said, about the reference to John Vanbiesbrouck. “Wouldn’t that be something?”

Then Robinson, a Canadien when Risebrough got Larocque, went on his way, nine hours before Game 6.